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Exploring Africa with her father when Robin Anderson was a young child has had a strong influence upon the subject matter depicted in her work today. Her time in London at Heatherleys Art School has taken nothing away from her affinity with her native land, which she soon returned to and which is still her home.

Anderson works in oil, watercolour, batik and in an innovative process which she calls ‘originals on silk’; sketches that she transforms using batik on screen-printed silks. This process owes a great deal to ancient craft traditions, which the Arts and Crafts movement played such an important role in reviving.

The artist’s work often involves stylised figures and shapes, which she overlaps to flatten the perspective. Silhouettes then allow the eye into the picture and the screen-printed fabric behind adds a separate visual plane. This primitive quality to her work is reminiscent of cave drawings; appropriate when one considers that all wall art is descended from this early form of self-expression.

Anderson’s art has been described as “a joyous celebration of the basic grace and vitality of all humankind”, which is of little surprise when one considers the vitality of her forefathers; Europe owes it’s first hospital and newspaper to her uncle and grandfather. In turn Robin Anderson has become Kenya’s most renowned artist.